Supplier Spotlight: Viome– from e-commerce to shelf ready

Keto? Vegan? Paleo? Gluten-free? With all the different diets out there claiming to improve your health, it’s difficult for consumers to determine which diet to follow. But what diet works for one consumer may not work for another. Enter Viome: an at-home test kit that determines your gut’s microbiome health who is disrupting the traditional notion of “diet” and what food is best for you.

Learn how this innovative health brand leveraged the retailer connections they made on RangeMe to transform their business from an e-commerce brand to a shelf-ready product you can find in stores.

Not all diets are alike, nor should they be

“Your microbiome is dramatically different from person to person,” says Rob Pellow, account manager at Viome. “We all share 99.9% of human DNA, which makes us very similar in that regard, but we probably share less than 1% of our microbiome. We’re very different.”

Viome’s at-home test starts with a customer sending in their sample which Viome studies to identify all organisms in their gut. The technology assesses whether or not these organisms are producing nutrients or toxins from the foods the customer consumes. The information is sent to Viome’s AI engine which recommends a personalized diet a customer should follow in order to achieve a balanced gut.

From doorstep to store shelf

While shopping for groceries at a Whole Foods Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for participants of a scientific study she was conducting for Viome, Alison Sjue spotted a bright blue RangeMe flyer. The flyer touted the benefits of RangeMe, encouraging suppliers to get their products in stores. After reading it, she immediately thought, “You’re damn right our products should be on shelves here.” That flyer was the turning point for Viome.

After joining RangeMe, a potential new sales channel presented itself: brick-and-mortar retail stores. After posting their products on RangeMe, a major drug store retailer reached out to Viome to bring them on for a pilot.

“This retailer was our first push to provide a product that was shelf ready that had enough support behind it to make Viome ready for in-person commerce,” says Sjue the Project Manager at Viome.

To bring their complex product to retail, Viome’s challenge was educating consumers on what, exactly, Viome is. When a kit is ordered directly from Viome’s website, consumers are already familiar with Viome’s purpose. The Viome kit arrives in a sleek black box with no information other than the company name, and customers register online to have their results processed.

But that wouldn’t work on a store shelf, where Viome needed not only to set itself apart but also educate and connect with consumers via their packaging. ”We’re not Apple, we can’t put an iconic black box on a shelf and expect shoppers to know what Viome is,” Sjue jokes.

To help shoppers understand what they are buying, Viome created a packaging sleeve presenting information about the company and product. Inside includes straight-forward instructions. The team also placed motion-activated video players next to the product on shelves to elevate the learning experience.

“We completely changed our shopping cart and registration experience to accommodate the retailer and make it an easier experience for everyone,” says Sjue.

How Viome uses RangeMe to grow

RangeMe has helped Viome change the way their business operates by moving from an online-only brand to selling a product within retail stores.

“We went from cold calling and little success to bringing on people like Rob to manage our distribution, marketing, and sales,” Sjue says. “RangeMe has not only allowed Viome to grow, it has also encouraged the company to expand, in a scalable and easy way.”

And expansion means more name recognition. It may not be the household name of Apple just yet but Viome is steadily growing and reaching more consumers every day. Viome became RangeMe Verified which played a big part in creating more visibility for the brand to get in front of some retailers, and having other retailers reach out to them. And that’s a great feeling.

Isabel creates engaging and thoughtful industry-related content for RangeMe customers as the Customer Content Coordinator. She is on a mission to help brands find success on RangeMe. Isabel is also the first of her name, gluten intolerant, destroyer of chocolate, recycler of plastic, and mother of content.